#upcycled furniture

“My wife and I have an agreement that whoever gets home first starts the cooking. I can’t cheat as she works here as well, in the painting department, so she’ll know if I’m just shuffling or detouring on my way home.”

“I’ve been a carpenter my whole life. I use to make furniture by hand in my village and people would travel for miles from neighboring villages to put in their requests. Back then, having wooden furniture made was a big event, once in a lifetime for most people, usually when they got married.”

“I fancy myself as a little bit of a historian. I think that’s what led me here. Most of the reclaimed woods used in furniture are 40 years old. Sometimes even a hundred. And every piece has a story behind it.”

Hong Bo grins. “I come from the local area but my wife grew up in a province far away from here. We were set up by her sister who worked nearby, she invited my wife to stay with her and that’s how we met.”

A man on a scooter passes us, planks of wood sticking out of the bike’s tray as he leaves the reclaimed wood market. Jing, our reclaimed wood buyer, has wood delivered here after sourcing it from old houses around China. “Most of the reclaimed wood used in furniture is at least 40 years old, and […]

Furniture makers, decorators, artists and antique dealers come from all over the province of Zhejiang to the wood market in Shangyu, China. It’s like a small wooden town on the edge of the city where twenty vendors, each with their own outdoor area, can sell their wares.